A Sibling Talk About a Crush
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Yuuta never did get the chance to tell Yuri about Raika. And Yuri didn't get the chance to do a lot of motherly things, be that with her brother, the children she gained through marriage or her birth child.


**A/N:** Written for the Snakes and Ladders Challenge at the AMF. The square I landed on was: write a fic in third person POV. Also written for the Crusades into the Celestial Realm challenge, world 1.1 vs. Lancer (N): write about something/someone clumsy.

**.**

**.**

**A Sibling Talk About a Crush**

**.**

Yuri could hear the ominous sounds of towers about to fall, and she laughed. 'Yuuta, you might want to catch whatever pile I can hear creaking over here.'

'Huh – what – ' Her brother's illegible confusion made her laugh harder, particularly when they were punctured by the sound of things – books or magazines, from the sound of it – crashing into a heap on the wooden floor.

'I did warn you,' she says brightly.'

'Thanks, onee-san,' Yuuta replied dryly, and Yuri was greeted to the sound of her brother's sneakers on the wooden floor and the flapping of pages. _So they were books_, she thought, proud of herself of having guessed. What she was not proud of though, was her brother's incapability keep his new apartment nice and orderly.

'Do I need to move in with you?' Jokes aside, her voice fell into the serious "mother" tone: the tone she'd learned when their parents had died too quick and she'd resorted to raising her little brother alone. If Yuuta was going to survive on his own during college, he needed to be able to have his books where they wouldn't fall over after all. 'What were they anyway? Things you shouldn't be reading?'

'What?!' Yuuta screeched, before coughing. 'No, they're books and study materials for literature. I thought I'd get a head start on some of it, seeing as the books go on a waiting list further into semester.'

'Hmm…' Yuri hummed. 'Good idea…but why did your voice go so high when you answered my question?' Amusement snuck into her tone again. It was fun to tease her little brother after all, and she had her share as a sister and as a mother to do.

'Because – that's – ' Yuri heard another voice, muffled in the background but distinctly male.

'Oh?' she said curiously. 'Who's that? A boyfriend?' She snickered at her brother's stuttering in response – but there had been an element of seriousness in the question. Yuuta had so recently moved out from under her wing, she felt it was still her business to know about his friends and his visitors.

'Nimura's just a friend!' Yuuta managed finally. 'We were preparing dinner. Besides, I don't even – '

'Letting a guest do the cooking for you.' Yuri clucked her tongue. 'I thought I taught you better than that, Yuuta.'

'He kicked me out of the kitchen,' Yuuta grumbled, 'and it's a little hard to try and get back in when they're on the phone.'

'True,' Yuri allowed, twiddling the phone cord around her pinky finger. 'But if I don't tease you, who will?'

She laughed again. Her brother always made her feel warm inside, whether that was as a lost little child under her wings or the clumsy boy that walked forth into adulthood. Those sorts of things were immortal, even when the things around them changed. Like when she'd found her true love in Takanshi Shingo and had married him. Like when she'd gained two wonderful daughters from that married, and given birth to a third. Like when Yuuta decided the time had finally come to move from under her wing, into his own little world.

A world where he had others, friends, looking out for him it seemed. 'I'll have to meet this Nimura one of these days.'

'…that's not such a good idea,' Yuuta coughed, after a pause. 'He's a bit of a womaniser.'

There was a shout from Nimura that Yuri would guess was something along the lines of "I won't flirt with your sister"…or maybe "I won't flirt with a married woman". 'I am married,' she pointed out in amusement. 'Regardless of whether your friend can control himself or not.'

'Right,' Yuuta said. 'I know that.'

'Shingo will be home soon too.' Yuri unwound the cord. 'I should get started on our dinner.'

'Okay then. Thanks for calling, onee-san.'

'Of course.' She smiled into the receiver. 'Now that you're living out of home, it's time for you to find a girlfriend, ne? Of course, I won't mind if it's a –'

'_Onee_-san.' His wail reminded her of when he was far younger, and embarrassed by something she'd done. Like parent days, where she'd show up having run all the way from her own school, out of breath and saying how she was Segawa Yuuta's sister, mother and best friend all rolled into one. Which was the entire truth, and they both knew it. 'I'm here to study, not fall in love.'

'You never know,' Yuri pointed out. 'But if that happens, share with your big sister, okay?'

'Sure.' His voice was doubtful, but agreeing.

**.**

The first party of the year. He'd known Nimura for…two weeks or so, and he should have known better. But Nimura was the sort of guy that managed to convince everyone that those things that seemed like bad ideas actually weren't…until they fell apart.

At least he hadn't wound up in too big a strife – because if he'd actually lost his innocence in a college party, his sister would have probably castrated him. _If_ she found out, which she would have. Yuri had a way of knowing everything about her family. She was just nosy like that…and she had to be, when she was Yuuta's elder sister, mother and best friend all rolled into one. It was her business to know all the foolish situations her little brother wound up in – but when Yuuta was all grown up, it felt more than a little awkward.

Luckily, that had been a white lie from Sato and Raika had just been playing along. Still, the setup was what began Yuuta's first – and till this date, only – crush. Because Raika curled up in that corner had struck some hidden cord in him, something he'd not noticed immediately and refused to admit until afterwards, as he got to know her better.

Because that first night, head buzzing with spiked punch as it was, she had seemed more like a dream. When he saw her in school afterwards though, she was a reality: the strange yet clever girl that didn't talk to most and not even Nimura would approach – as if the heavens were telling him she was the right girl for him. Because she seemed to like him well enough, and he didn't think of her as weird at all. With her eccentrics, yes. But alien? No.

It was the sort of thing that, once it sunk in a little more, Yuri would get to know. Either she'd find out herself somehow, or Yuuta would the one to say it to her. That he'd fallen in love: that sudden clumsy love Yuri always laughed at when she imagined him in love. But Yuuta couldn't bring himself to mind now. Yuri was always teasing, after all. And now that he did think he'd fallen in love, the feeling of find it embarrassing had faded away into the past.

He wondered if all that was part of becoming an adult as well, moving on from the childhood where he'd been under his sister's wing, and her protection. Like how Raika's teasing of him reminded him fondly of his sister, and yet was slightly different as well. Like a girlfriend, one day, and then a wife. And maybe that could have gone the natural way, if his sister and her husband's untimely death hadn't left him with three daughters.

In retrospect, that was his own choice and he didn't regret it. Like Yuri had adopted him to keep them from being separated, Yuuta adopted her children. Even if the elder two weren't blood related to either of them, he didn't care. He wouldn't see them separated. He wouldn't see the family his sister had built, after years of taking care of him, be destroyed. And despite how much he'd hated the idea of her marrying a guy who already had two children originally, he'd quickly warmed up to the kids. And Hina…who couldn't love Hina? He was yet to meet someone who couldn't love that sweet face. Even Raika fell in love with her on first sight – fell in love with all three sisters actually: Sora and Miu as well. And she was always there to help him out when he did something stupid like tripped over food bills because he didn't know how to shop for a family, or was late too many times because he hadn't worked out the best schedule for all of them yet, or his own worries and words tumbling over each other because it was all so sudden and he wasn't used to it and without his sister, he didn't have anyone to lean on –

Raika slapped him for that, because he had _her_ to lean on, and Sako, and Nimura. And even Sora and Miu and Hina, who were supposed to lean on him.

**.**

'I never got that chance, did I?' Yuuta asked his sister's portrait: that smiling face affixed over the Takanshi family grave beside the man she'd loved. 'You'd have had a field day with her too…though I'm not too sure whether you would have liked her or not. She's…strange.'

Strange seemed like a bad word to use, but he couldn't think of anything else.

'She teases me just like you…and sometimes, I feel even more dorky in front of her. And she uses that: like the first time we met, pretending when we were drunk I'd – I'd – ' He was still young and a virgin and admitting it at his sister's grave was still too awkward for him. 'Never mind.' He coughed. 'Though there was that time afterwards where she dressed up as a shrine maiden and had Sako tie her up, pretending to be the damsel in distress. And I wanted to untie her since Sako had no business doing stuff like that, but –' He stumbled on that one as well, seeing as part of the problem had been Raika's cleavage had been far too visible for his comfort, and even closer to the twists of rope that tied her to the post. ' – Sako and Nimura had dug a hole for me,' he finished, a little lamely. If Yuri was listening, she'd see through that and find the something else hidden behind in a heartbeat.

But Yuuta was alone at the grave and the wind was silent. 'She's like you in a lot of ways,' he continued. 'She helps me out when I'm lost, when I don't know what to do – but not coddling, more like…well, guiding I suppose. Like when you'd ask me all those questions when I was little and stuck on my homework, until I understood what problem I was having and could solve the answer myself. She does that; makes sure I work out the answer in the end. Except the problems aren't so much homework but…everything else.'

Everything else was how drastically his life had changed when his sister and her husband had vanished from it.

'I – I miss you, onee-san,' he confessed. 'And Shingo-san too, of course, but – you know. You are my sister and mother and best friend all rolled into one. And part of me still waits for you to scold me for getting into trouble or doing things wrong, or give me a big hug in front of my friends when I win an award or something, and call me every week at the strangest times…'

'But aside from that, everything's going great. Shingo-san's relatives finally gave us the lease for the house, so we're not cramped into my one bedroom apartment anymore and Sora-chan and Miu-chan don't have to take three different trains to get to their schools. Instead, I'm the one who has to take three different trains to get to college. But I don't mind. That kind of stuff's easier for me than it is for them. I got a new job as well, something closer to home. Two jobs actually, and one is editing essays: something I can take my laptop and do on those long train rides. And the relatives finally seem to accept I'll be keeping their kids, and are helping out a little too. And Hina will be starting elementary school in March. She's so excited about it.'

Yuuta felt his eyes moist at the thought. At least his parents had been able to see his first day of school – and he still remembered how excited they'd been, how proud. Yuri had missed that chance: the only child she'd given birth to, and she'd died before that chance.

'I'll take her in your place, onee-san. I'm her father and uncle and big brother and friend – ' And each of the three girls called him something different too. ' – just like you did with me.'


End file.
